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Busy Month!
Posted on September 15, 2010 by Brian under Life.
The month of September is shaping up to be a busy month for the wife and I. To start we visited my wife’s friend Sheryl in Dallas. It was a fun trip and not too bad of a drive. I told my wife that the drive to Dallas was easier than the one to KC. I think its because there is more to see on the way to Dallas. We went with her parents and sister and had a blast visiting the Gallaria Mall and cooking out with Sheryl’s family.
Next we had my Mom’s birthday at PF Chang’s. We had not been here in some time and I had forgotten how good the food was. The wife and I split the Mongolian beef and added eggplant instead of the scallions, it was a lot of fun as well.
That Saturday we volunteered at Zoobalee. We has a blast at this event. We got to walk around the event before we had to work. We got to sample wines, eat lots of food and visit a few booths that had deals and freebees. It was great, then we had to work, which wasn’t that bad either. We just had to stand at a door and make sure that no one but members entered the party. It was fun. I hope we get to do it again next year.
Right now Ching is out of town on a work trip. When she has these over night meetings we get to chat over Google talk. Its great that technology has grown to allow this form of communication. How did the world cope before cell phones and the internet, barbaric!
On Saturday Ching will be working the fair for her company. I’m tagging along so that I can take pictures of all of the weird people that go to the fair. I think I may start a “people of the fair” website, like the “wall-creatures” site, it should be good for a laugh or two.
Next week Ching has another out of town meeting. This time almost all of her coworkers will be in attendance. Maybe they will offer her a big raise, hint…wink…elbow rub to the big boss, LOL.
Then at the beginning of October we have our friend Richards wedding. We are both looking forward to this because Richard and his wife to be are dancers.
We are expecting lots of dancing at the wedding reception. So much so that we are trying to start dance classes this Friday.
Hopefully after that things will calm calm down a bit and Ching and I can do a few things just the two of us. I’m thinking we should have a date night, maybe a nice dinner out, stroll around the Water Front or Bradley Fair, then dancing at club Suede. She loves this place because they have great salsa music, sometimes live.
So you can see that we have a pretty active lifestyle, but we like that. If it were not for my wife, I would not have experienced half of the things that we have done together. I know for a fact that I would never have left this country, I owe all of that to her. Hopefully next year we can go back to the Philippines and visit the resort we went to last time. We had a lot of fun then and I am sure we will again. I want to do the jet ski around the islands, I think that would be a blast.
Well I’m sire I will have more later. Till then.
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There are others like us!
Posted on September 10, 2010 by Brian under Life.
Today at work I was talking to one of my co-workers. We chat whenever we have the time, anything from how our day is going to our spouses. Today’s chat was about our spouses. She got a great promotion and will be moving to a different state soon. She was telling me how dependent her and her husband were towards each other. She said that she will be in this new state for several months before her husband can join her and she just doesn’t know how she will be able to cope without her husband around.
I told her that my wife and I are the same, we rely on each other for everything. I told her that when one of the two of us is out of town for work, we have a kind of withdrawal, even if its only for a few hours, especially me. She said that her and her husband are the same. He really does not do anything on his own unless she can join him. He has to leave town on occasion for work and they always stay in touch and communicate. If one of them gets busy and does not get in touch with the other, the other worries. I told her that my wife an I are the same. We have been like this for years. I told her that some of my wife’s friends think it’s unhealthy, they think that we should have “Me” time. She laughed at this. I went on to tell her that we have been mistaken for newlyweds on occasion, even though we have been together for almost 12 years, we sometimes still act like newlyweds. She confirmed that her and her husband are the same and they have been married much longer than us.
She told me to stay the way we are, they have always been close and every day their relationship gets closer. She assured me that there is nothing wrong with wanting to do things with each other all the time. She also pointed out that there is nothing wrong with one of you not wanting to do something with the other and the other doing something with friends, or by them selves. She said that on occasion, they will have something to do apart but it’s usually short because they want to get back to each other and spend time together.
I can only hope that my wife and I will have the same “Healthy” relationship as them. I was very please to hear that we are not a weird couple and that there are others like us. After our talk I went back to my desk and looked around, I have several pictures of my wife scattered around my desk, that’s what gets me through the day. My other co-workers call it my shrine, I call it love. I took a walk around the office and found several other employees that had multiple pictures of their families, some of them had more than me. I guess I get picked on because I’m close and an easy target.
I really do love my wife, ever since I first time I saw her. When she agreed to marry me it was like the world lit up and shined a bright light right on us. OK, you all can stop rolling your eyes now.
I can tell you this, the love I have for my wife, and from my observations, the love others have for their spouses and families can not accurately be expressed in words. You can type and say how much you love someone until your blue in the face or your fingers bleed. However, the look on the persons face when they look into the eyes of their spouse or admire their family, says more than any words can.
Baby, I love you more than anything. I hope that our relationship will stand the test of time. I look forward to acting like newlyweds when we are in our 60’s. I love you.
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That’s What You Get!
Posted on September 9, 2010 by Brian under Life.
Today was my mothers birthday. Don’t ask me how old she is, I quit counting when I was 13. After dinner we were discussing the finer moments in the families dinning history. One moment will forever be ingrained in my memory.
It was several years ago at an eatery called “Rio Bravo”. It was an OK place. Not a fancy joint but the food was decent. At the time it was myself, my mother, father and brother. We were immediately seated as there were only a few people in the place and we had come early enough to beat the dinner crowd. We were sat down next to a table of about 16 people. We waited about 10 min and the waiter came and dropped down some water. He said he would be back shortly to get our drink orders. We waited and waited while we watched him cater to this table of 16 people. He just kept hovering and hovering and not paying any attention to us. About the time we were getting ready to get up and leave the Manager comes around. He asks “Is everything going OK? is our server assisting you OK?” My dad replied, “As a matter of fact, NO!” he went on to tell him how we were getting ready to leave as we had been waiting 30 min and only received water and our waiter had still not taken our order.
The manager immediately apologized and said he would find our waiter. My dad pointed out that he was at the table with 16 people and had been there since we sat down. The manager asked that we stay and said he would return in a moment. We watched as the manager walked over to the waiter and asked to see him for a moment. The manager and waiter walked to a little alcove directly in my line of sight and hearing. I listened as the manager asked why he had not gotten our order yet and asked if he realized that it had been 30 min. The waiter boldly replied “Yes I’m aware, but it’s only four people, I’m not going to get as good of a tip from them as I am going to get from the 16 top.” The manager simply replied “I see, well I’ll handle the 4 top then”. I saw this sheepish grin on the face of the manager as the waiter walked by giving us a dirty look. The manager noticed it as well and immediately walked over to our table. He announced his name again and said he would be our waiter this evening. He then said “Please order anything off of the menu tonight, and I mean anything! Dinner… will be on him!” as he pointed his finger at our previous waiter. We all looked at the manager in shock and awe!
At that moment we immediately looked over the menu and ordered appetizers, expensive main meals and desserts that we would not have ordered if we were paying the bill. At the end the manager walked over and laid the check down in front of us. We all looked at him, then at the check, then back at him. He stated “I just wanted you all to see what he is going to have to pay before he leaves here today”. Looking at the bill we realized that the 4 of us ran up a $90.00 bill. It was amazing. We were so stuffed we could barely move. At that moment the manager picked up the check just as the little waiter was walking back the the alcove, he then handed the waiter the check and told him “I hope you made a real good tip off of that 16 top”, the waiter said “yep, sure did! and thanks for taking care of that table”. The manager then handed the waiter the bill and said “this will need to be paid before you leave tonight, it’s the bill for the 4 top you abandoned”.
The manager made it a point to say it loud enough that we could all hear it. The waiter was pissed and immediately snapped us an evil look. At that moment we decided that it was time to go. But before we left, my dad took 30 dollars out of his pocket and handed it to the manager. He told him that he deserved this for taking such good care of us. The manager tried to refuse it but we are rather persistent people.
It was the greatest thing I have ever seen a manager do and I will never forget it for as long as I live.
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The Love of My Life
Posted on September 3, 2010 by Brian under Life.
Lately my wife has been watching these romantic Philippine movies from Netflix. Thanks to subtitles I can follow along pretty good. Some of the movies are not to bad, others are a little cheesy. However, they all have the same message. Man finds girl, falls in love with girl, girl falls in love with man, minor turmoil then everything works out for the best and they live happily ever after.
Watching all of these movies made me think about the relationship with my wife. We met almost 12 years ago. I fell in love with her the first time I saw her. I will never forget how she looked walking in to Walt’s bar and grill. Unfortunately, at the time she was with one of my coworkers. But I didn’t let that stop me.
I waited and when the opportunity presented itself I made my move. Luckily she liked geeky guys and I realised soon enough that she was just as into me as I was into her.
We had our turbulent moments. She even dumped me one time. But she returned and I accepted her with open arms. Ever since then we have been inseparable. People that don’t know us think we are newlyweds, people that do know us think that we are crazy. But we just tell all of them that they are jealous that they don’t have a love like ours.
I would not trade this life for anything. I tell my wife all the time that she is the best thing that ever happened to me and that I can not imagine my life without her. I also tell her that if not for her, I’d probably be a hermit and not ever leave my house.
She is my soul mate, the love of my life, and until the day I die, I will always be grateful that she came into my life.
I love you baby, always and forever.
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Provider Wars: Part 2
Posted on August 18, 2010 by Brian under Reviews.
As promised, I am back to discuss the rate plans that are being provided by the big 4. That would be T-Mobile, AT&T, Verizon and Sprint.
I did extensive research and compared the family plans from all carriers, using my current plan as the base for comparison. To give you a little back ground. I have been with T-Mobile for over 10 years. I started out on just a simple single person rate plan and then about 6 years ago upgraded to the Family Plan and brought my wife’s phone into the mix. The plan we have right now is a 500 min (shared) family plan for $49.99, they don’t offer this any more and we have been very careful to not loose it. We don’t use that many minutes as everyone we know is on T-Mobile and we use Mobile-to-Mobile minutes more than anything. We added a Family Unlimited Text plan a few months after that for $9.99, this is also no longer available and we have been careful to keep this feature. If they were to ever discontinue this feature and force us to change, we would have to pay $9.99 per line instead of the current overall coverage for text messaging. The plan works for us and we have never gone over our minutes. We had data on our lines but only for 30 days as neither of our phones were really data friendly.
Since I had been having trouble getting what I wanted out of T-Mobile I decided to look elsewhere, in case I needed to change providers. I really didn’t want to change providers, like I said; everyone we know is on T-Mobile service. The Mobile-to-Mobile is a real benefit to us.
I started with Verizon. I get a 12% discount through my company on any Verizon account, so this was a perk. The family plan that I looked at was $99.99 for 700 Talk and (unlimited) Text minutes. I would then have to add unlimited data to the account for an additional $30.00 per line. In total with my discount my plan would have been around $150.00 before taxes. This was the lowest plan that they offered in the Family category. I was disappointed that they did not offer a Talk, Text and Data plan in the Family Plans. But looking at all the others this was shaping up to be the best.
Verizon also has the best coverage out of all of the carriers. Their data service is ranked highest amongst JD Power and Associates and due to the purchase of Alltel; they edged out AT&T for the top seat in the customer service category.
With the popularity of the Android market rising almost daily, Verizon offered a very large selection of these phones. The most popular being the HTC Incredible and the Motorola Droid X. Both were not available for purchase when we visited the store and we were told that it would be 24 to 48 hours before any would be in. However, we still felt that if we had to change providers this would be the smart option. As my wife told my friends “I will be a shame if we have to change providers because it means we will have to find new friends on the Verizon network so we can use the Mobile-to-Mobile again”.
The next carrier is AT&T. I am not fond of them ans the only thing they really have going for them is the iPhone. Without that, they would not be in the ranks at all. They were rated third in customer service by JD Power and they slipped in the ranks of customers thanks to Verizon’s acquisition of Alltel. Their coverage is only good in major cities and along major highways. Their data coverage is worse than their cell coverage and with the amount of people that use iPhones in any given city, the network is prone to frequent outages. The kicker though, the thing that I think will come back and bight AT&T in the ass is that they did away with their unlimited data plans. They now only offer 2Gig plans for customers that use data. This is not wise for smart phones that are perpetually connected to the internet like the iPhone. someone like my wife would go thorugh 2Gigs in a little over 2 weeks. You would not be able to stream things like Pandora or Slacker all the time because you would burn through your data too quickly. It’s no wonder that it was recently reported that the sales of the iPhone had recently dropped. Their 700 min Talk only plan was 69.99, I would have to add Unlimited Text for an additional $15.00 per line and then the 2Gig data plan for an additional $30.00 per line. In total it would be $150.00 for the service as well. But the coverage and the lack of anything other than an iPhone was very discouraging.
(Update: AT&T just released the Galaxy S to their line up. This adds another non iPhone option that is in my opinion much better. But with a lack of Unlimited Data, I don’t see this being a popular choice).
Last we have Sprint. Sprint’s appeal is their Unlimited Everything plan. This is unlimited calling to any phone, anywhere in the United States. Also unlimited Text and picture messaging and Unlimited Data. The family plan was $129.99 before taxes. This was very appealing. We would not have to worry about going over our min, we would still be able to keep our friends even though they were on a different carrier and we would not have to worry about data limitations. All in all this was looking to be the economical pick. However, we had the Sprint coverage issues and the fact that they have been in last place among the big 4 in customer service ratings for the last 5 years running. I have a few friends that are on Sprint and they have no problems, as long as they stay in Wichita. They leave the major city and it’s outsville for the coverage. Looking over the review on the web this seems to be the running story.
So looking over everything, I decided that Verizon would be the best choice. They had the best coverage, the best data, the best customer service. Simply the best all around. And with the discount it made it quite enticing.
Update: Since I started this post T-Mobile has finally offered me what I wanted. So we are staying with them for at least another 2 years. By then the iPhone will have been outof exclusivity, all the carries will have a version and with luck everyone will still have the unlimited data plans. If not then I will stay with T-Mo until the end of the world.
Which according to the Mayans, should happen about the time my contract ends.
(no really, that’s what the tablets say…”Flip’s contract ends and the world ends”)
Go figure.
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